There’s a very odd thing happening here today–not one single Facebook referral. I don’t get it. My posts are all on Patty’s Facebook page. But no referrals. What gives?
Meanwhile, thank you, everybody who’s sent up prayers for me. I’ll be sure to keep you posted. Maybe this affliction will go away as mysteriously as it came. The Lord can do that for us.
I fear Violet Crepuscular has been eating too many of her own toothpaste rolls. Chapter CCXCI of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, suggests that maybe these confections are not quite as good for you as might be hoped.
With Lord Gromleigh, Marquess of Grone, still missing, Lord Jeremy Coldsore summons Constable Chumley–but he seems to be missing, too.
“Fear not, dear reader,” writes Ms. Crepuscular. “I know where he is. It’s the writer’s responsibility to know more than the characters.” Especially these characters.
Totally captivated by his study of moles, the constable has joined the Greater Scurveyshire Mole Study Club. Imagine his disappointment when it turns out to be just another one of those clubs whose members do nothing but sit around and brag about how difficult their lives have been.
“I went to a school where they used to make us do everything backwards. We tried to tunnel out of it, but we only succeeded in tunneling back in!”
“When I was born, my mother sold me to a fisherman to use as bait. And she only got sixpence for me!”
“You think you’ve got troubles? My wife has no nose!” And so on.
Meanwhile, Lord Jeremy’s wedding to Lady Margo Cargo cannot possibly be held as long as a peer of the realm is lost somewhere in Coldsore Hall. After failing to find him anywhere else, Johnno the Merry Minstrel proposes to search the attic.
“I don’t know about that,” Lord Jeremy says. “No one has been up there since Lord Hucklebutt went in 1673–and he was never entirely rational afterward. Eventually he had to be put down. Besides, no one has the key.”
“But Germy,” interposes the American adventurer, Willis Twombley, “ain’t it a well-known fact that nobody’s better than ol’ Chumley when it comes to pickin’ locks? He’ll get in, if anyone can.”
“I have ordered peasants with torches and pitchforks to search the shire for the constable,” declares Jeremy.
“And that, dear reader, is where we must let it stand for the nonce,” Ms. Crepuscular confides in the reader. “You really ought to try those toothpaste rolls. They’re wonderful with catsup.”
I reckon a lot of us can use this hymn today–You Raise Me Up, performed by Celtic Woman.
Raise us up, O Lord, as only you can do! We need it.
Our Stop & Shop now has one of these. “Marty the Robot” wanders around the store, looking for spills, broken glass, empty spaces in the shelves, whatever. (Y’know, this store in Pennsylvania somewhere looks exactly like our supermarket. Our robots are identical, too. This story is eerie enough without that. I mean, what if the people are identical, too…?)
Some of the shoppers were amused, some didn’t seen to notice Marty at all, and a few had to pause in wild surmise.
What do you want to bet Marty is also programmed to blow the whistle on shoplifters? Thou shalt not steal.
I’ve grown rather fond of the people who work at our Stop & Shop and would never want to see them replaced. We share jokes, news, commiserate with each other–yo, corporate! You gotta keep the people!
Recently a little child somehow got separated from his daddy, got scared, and started crying. A store employee took him by the hand and comforted him, and was all set to take him up to the front desk so they could page his daddy; but Daddy found them first.
A robot can’t do anything like that; and I would rather they didn’t try.
We’re getting a lot of prayer requests this weekend. Well, prayer is one of our purposes here.
Please, everybody, join in prayer for Joshua’s grandmother and aunt in Japan, who have heard the Gospel but not as yet been called: Father in Heaven, open their hearts that they may hear. We want our loved ones with us in your kingdom; we want them all to know the joy of Jesus Christ Our Lord, that they may be saved by him. We all have people that we love who have not yet come to Jesus. Bring them, O Lord our God: in Jesus’ name, Amen.
For no visible reason, the third and fourth fingers on my right hand are hurting like blazes. I mean jolts of intolerable pain. But there’s nothing to see on the outside, and I can’t remember anything I might have done to cause an injury.
So please make mention of me in your prayers, because this has gone on for several days and it’s starting to wear me down.
And I don’t have much confidence in doctors, after Patty went through all those tests and never got a diagnosis, let alone treatment. But I still trust in prayer.
Who couldn’t use a few Sundays like this one?
And I have pressed wrong keys galore, for reasons which will soon become apparent… We’ll just see if I can publish this post at all.
He is what the world needs, now as much as ever.
Christ for the World We Sing–as a recessional for the congregation and choir at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City.
Cats do things that can be pretty hard to explain. It is said of Thutmosis III that he understood cats better than any human ever, but that his profound knowledge of their ways died with him.
Y’know, I’ve never had a cat that stood up on its hind legs…
Please pray for our sister, Phoebe, and her friend, Susan, who is afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease. (Last year I lost both my aunt and my brother-in-law to that disease.)
Father in Heaven, have mercy on your servant, Susan, and rescue her from her illness; and strengthen your servant, Phoebe, so she can help care for her friend. Sometimes, Lord, caregiving is exceedingly hard. So please, Lord, hear our prayers and help them: in Jesus’ name, Amen.